Mendo Coast TV closes up shop

After losing a court battle recently, Mendocino Coast Television announced it is ceasing operations.

According to a resolution passed by MCTV's board of directors on July 13, the organization "lost the lawsuit filed by Footlighters, and now must give back the media center, leaving MCTV without a home of operation and with virtually no cash."

According to the Fort Bragg Advocate-News, the two nonprofits have been battling in court since 2009 over a decision made in 2006 to give MCTV the Fort Bragg Footlighters building at 248 E. Laurel Street.

On May 1, Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Jeanine Nadel wrote that, at the time, Footlighters board president Bud Farley acted illegally in transferring the building to MCTV in 2007, when he believed the theater group was to be dissolved.

Nadel rejected the main defense that MCTV had acted in good faith and that no one had objected to the transfer in a timely fashion. She ordered MCTV to give back the building and pay the theater company $36,315.

According to the resolution passed by MCTV's board of directors, MCTV "invested all but a few thousand dollars ... in capital equipment and facilites, in purchasing media equipment and renovating its media center."

The board continued by stating that MCTV is "facing financial demands from the attorney representing Footlighters that far exceed the finacnial resources of MCTV," which is a nonprofit, and "it sees the dissolution of MCTV as the only viable method for complying with the court judgment."